It’s no secret that social advertising is a hugely popular way for companies to promote themselves. Social networks are constantly developing new and more effective and appealing ways of advertising on their services, like how Twitter moved ads into users’ timelines and how Facebook launched a new ad program targeted at smaller businesses. It’s hard to say exactly what companies are looking for in social advertising because there are a wealth of benefits but this infographic by Flowtown illustrates how companies are reacting to this growing form of advertising.

According to the infographic, 85 percent of companies surveyed currently use social advertising or are planning to implement a campaign in the next 12 months. A total of 60 percent of companies believe that social advertising will be very valuable to their company in the next 2 years; however, only 11 percent of companies say they are currently very satisfied with the social advertising they’ve done in the past.

Companies tend to utilize the same platforms for advertising. Facebook ranks on top with 93 percent of companies deploying a social advertising campaign on that platform and Twitter comes in second with 78 percent. YouTube is the third most popular with 61 percent of companies using that as a platform for advertising. Building brand awareness, engaging existing customers and driving traffic to an online destination are the 3 top objectives companies have when deploying a campaign.

To see more stats on social advertising, check out the infographic below. Click on the image to view the full size.